The invention provides a housing assembly in which a membrane keyboard can be mounted so that the membrane keyboard can be used on leveled working surfaces, while the housing assembly can be further easily fashionable.
With respect to technologic products that are presently commercialized, consumer demands increasingly emphasize on products that can be conveniently carried. As a result, product design increasingly develops products with thinner, lighter, shorter, and smaller external aspect. However, some electronic products do not meet the above characteristics, and consumer demands for more easily portable products cannot be therefore satisfied.
In the market of keyboard products, the consumer can principally find three types of devices that are rigid keyboards, foldable keyboards, and membrane keyboards. xe2x80x9cRigid keyboardsxe2x80x9d refer to the conventional keyboards that are used in traditional personal computers or portable computers. The rigid keyboard conventionally comprises an upper and lower housing and, assembled within the upper and lower housing, a circuit board, keypads made of plastics, and key caps. After the above component parts are assembled with one another, the hence-formed rigid keyboard is substantially voluminous and heavy, and cannot be further accommodated in a more convenient form. Contrasting with mobile and easily portable telecommunication devices such as mobile phones, the use of the rigid keyboard is therefore limited to specific conditions.
In order to provide a keyboard that is more easily portable, some manufacturers have developed a foldable keyboard. The foldable keyboard typically includes a base support where are defined connecting zones that correspond to spacing intervals adequately disposed within the arrangement of the key locations. A circuit board made of foldable material and keypads then are adequately disposed at the connecting zones and key locations, respectively. A substrate made of foldable material is further typically attached on a bottom surface of the base support. The periphery of the foldable substrate is further provided with a protective frame having recesses and protrusion structures that connect to one another. With the above structure, the foldable keyboard can be folded to reduce its space occupation. However, after being folded, the foldable keyboard is thicker and cannot be easily placed in a bag to be carried. Moreover, once the foldable keyboard is unfolded, the bottom surface of the base support does not have any effective support structures at the folding locations. As a result, when the foldable keyboard is used for typing, it easily rocks around the connecting zones. The foldable keyboard is therefore easily leveled, which renders typing uncomfortable.
Membrane keyboards are principally made of flexible substrates. The membrane keyboards can be therefore arranged in a convenient form by direct folding or rolling. However, a major inconvenient of membrane keyboards is that their utilization is difficult when the working surface on which is placed the membrane keyboard is leveled, in which case the membrane keyboard cannot be stabilized in an adequate position for typing.
Besides the above functional considerations, aesthetic variations of conventional keyboards are also limited and not fashionable, and the external aspect of the keyboard keys is usually uniform.
A principal objective of the invention is therefore to solve the above problems by arranging a membrane keyboard in a housing assembly so that the membrane keyboard can be used on leveled working surfaces. The housing assembly is further separable to be easily fashionable.
In accordance with the above and other objectives, the housing assembly for membrane keyboard comprises an upper cover, a pressing layer disposed on the upper cover, and a base support. The membrane support is arranged between the pressing layer and the base support. An image layer can be further placed between the pressing layer and the membrane keyboard. A plurality of key zones are defined on the pressing layer corresponding to the locations of a plurality of pressing labels defined on the membrane keyboard.
To provide a further understanding of the invention, the following detailed description illustrates embodiments and examples of the invention, this detailed description being provided only for illustration of the invention.